Ask HN: Is it possible to craft a privacy policy that perpetually protects users
Is it legally possible to craft a privacy policy for an app that prevents a company from loosening it later on if the app is sold or if the owner of the app decides to try and monetize data in the app?
For context I am the developer of an app called Digital Carrot[1] that lets users create goals for themselves that are verified by data from connected services. For example someone might create a goal to go to the gym, which the app verifies by reading GPS data from your phone. Needless to say my app handles a lot of very sensitive data and the app's privacy policy prohibits me from accessing any of this data for any reason. I've been curious if there is a way to put some kind of legally binding clause in my privacy policy that would prevent a future owner of the app from just forcing all the users to agree to a new policy that lets them harvest all of this data for nefarious purposes. Does anyone know:
1. Is this possible? 2. Has anyone done something like this? 3. What kind of mechanism would you employ to enforce this?
[1] https://www.digitalcarrot.app/ IANAL but I think bankruptcy-court is an issue. An agreement to Not Do Evil can be put aside by a judge if it means squeezing money out of the company to the pay creditors, such as by selling the company (and its data-assets) at a higher price. Good gravy... I hadn't even considered that. I assume end to end encryption would help mitigate this. Breaking E2E encryption would require a client side update that could be hard to implement if the company has already gone belly up. Probably, business-as-usual systems and policies make it harder for anyone to argue the "debtor in possession" [0] violated their fiduciary duty to do their best to ensure creditors get paid. In other words, having a "smash glass in case of insolvency" button might do the job of protecting customers, but a judge could decide it looks too much like a shopkeeper screaming "if I can't have it nobody can" before lighting everything valuable on fire. [0] https://www.uscourts.gov/court-programs/bankruptcy/bankruptc...